(5) HOMES FOR JEWS
The chief “hospital” for Jewish converts was in London. The inmates were not ailing in health, but they needed succour because they were unable to earn a p020 living, and were cut off from their own families as apostates. Converts were often sent to monasteries for maintenance. The names of almost five hundred, together with the particular houses that received them, are recorded in one roll of 39 Henry III.[16]
[♦ ] 3. HOUSE OF CONVERTS, LONDON
Special provision for the maintenance of converted Jews was made in 1232, when Henry III founded the House of Converts, Hospital of St. Mary or “Converts’ Inn,” near the Old Temple. Within twenty years Matthew Paris described its purpose, also making a drawing (Fig. 3) in the margin:—
“To this house converted Jews retired, leaving their Jewish blindness, and had a home and a safe refuge for their whole lives, living under an honourable rule, with sufficient sustenance without servile work or the profits of usury. So it p021 happened that in a short time a large number were collected there. And now, being baptized and instructed in the Christian law, they live a praiseworthy life under a rector specially deputed to govern them.”[17]
The year of this chronicler’s death (1256), upwards of 160 convert brothers received tunics from the king’s almoner. Probably about half were inmates, and half unattached pensioners. The number may have been increased from interested motives on account of the persecution of Jews which followed the supposed “horrible crime lately perpetrated in the city of Lincoln, of a Christian boy crucified.” In January 1256, pardon was granted to John the convert, who was a Jew of Lincoln when the so-called “little St. Hugh” was put to death.
The Domus Conversorum was rebuilt by Edward I, who bestowed much attention upon it. By his ordinance, the pensioners were taught handicrafts and trained to support themselves. He ordered that school should be kept and that suitable converts might be educated as clerks or chaplains. St. Mary’s was an industrial home or training institution for persecuted Jewish Christians, who were safe only under royal protection. Another roll of the same year shows that a special effort was made at that time to evangelize the Jews. Orders had recently been given to repress notorious blasphemers, and those who after baptism had been “perverted to Jewish wickedness.” Edward also directed that strenuous efforts should be made by the Friar Preachers for their conversion. Finally he set himself to improve the endowments of the institution:—
“He therefore, in order that those who have already turned p022 from their blindness to the light of the Church may be strengthened in the firmness of their faith, and those who still persist in their error may more willingly and readily turn to the grace of the faith, has taken measures, under divine guidance, to provide healthfully for their maintenance.”[18]
The House of Converts was then supporting ninety-seven persons. Of these fifty-one remained in 1308. After the great expulsion in 1290, the numbers were quickly reduced. In 1327, there were twenty-eight. In 1344, the institution supported eight converts and seven admitted for other causes. After that date the pensioners dwindled to two. During the fifteenth century, a few foreign Jews were received from time to time, the household varying between eight and three. The hospital was empty in the days of Edward VI, and remained so until 1578; its subsequent history is related by Adler.